The production of large amounts of water from oil and gas wells constitutes one of the major expenses in the overall recovery of hydrocarbons from a subterranean formation. Many producing oil wells produce a gross effluent having greater than 80% by volume water. Therefore, most of the pumping energy is expended by lifting water from the well. Then the production effluent must be subjected to expensive separation procedures in order to recover water-free hydrocarbons. The water constitutes a troublesome and an expensive disposal problem.
Therefore, it is highly desirable to decrease the amount of water produced from oil and gas wells. Another beneficial effect of decreasing the amount of produced water is realized by decreasing the flow of water in the well bore at a given pumping rate thereby lowering the liquid level over the pump in the well bore, thereby reducing the back pressure in the formation and improving pumping efficiency and net daily oil production.